September 2012

September 30, 2012

I came across a fun TED talk recently, by Dan Cobley, about the parallels between physics and marketing. Dan's a marketing director at Google and very cleverly relates 4 principles of physics to marketing and branding.

First, Acceleration = Force/Mass. The more mass something has, the more force required to move it. The bigger the brand, the more time and money required to change its perception. (Or bad PR can do it for free...see #3 below.)

Next is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. You remember that one, right? I'm sure you recognized the equation above. It says that at the quantum level, it's impossible to distinguish between a wave and a particle because as soon as you observe it, the actual observation changes it. This is also known as the observer effect. Ever been in a focus group? Everyone eats healthy, right? Well, that's what they tell you.

Third, is the concept that Observation Can't Prove Anything, only disprove. Many theories are not technically proven, it's just that nobody has failed to disprove them. But, all it takes is one observation not consistent with the theory and wham, it's all over for that theory. Same goes for brands who have built their reputations over generations. Nothing is iron clad. One bad event and a brand can be tarnished beyond repair. How is BP's brand image bouncing back?

Finally, there's the concept that all systems are in an Increasing State of Entropy. In other words, things are coming apart. Cobley cites the democratization of brands in that the internet now allows consumers to influence brand trajectory. A brand is no longer controlled by a brand manager in a company. We own it. He believes this loss of control is a good thing if companies learn to embrace it and work with it, harnessing the power of the people.

I'd like to add one more to Dan's list: what goes up, must come down. Newton's Theory of Gravitation. Sometimes trends, companies, products and brands seem to skyrocket like a baseball heading out of the park. But gravity - or the reality of the markets, tastes and success - have a way of acting upon those objects of our desire. There is an inevitable peak and fall. Not if, but when. It's how companies handle those changes that defines whether they can keep things aloft and send them back up again. Sometimes they can. Often they can't.

So, what can we take away from a comparison of physics to marketing? We don't revolve around companies...brands should assume they revolve around customers. Observation is important, but not always accurate. Nothing is forever. And, things can change fast - maybe even at the speed of light.

September 07, 2012

Like many words, the word choice has roots in Old French, specifically the verb choisir, which actually means to perceive. I've always had a tough time with choice. I vividly remember when I was about 5 years old, my mother offered me a whole candy bar...the holy grail of kid-dom. I just had to choose which one I wanted. Milky Way or 3 Muskateers? I weighed the options in my head, but couldn't decide. I took so long I got the threat of neither. I'm sure I did choose, but I remember to this day how choosing one of them meant giving up the other. I just couldn't give up the other.

Fast-forward to the real-world candy store. Yes, it's the world of making things and selling them. It's the world we're all in every day because we need to make a living. If only our choices were as black and white as my candy bar example. I find trade-offs especially challenging in B2B marketing.

If my mother had been particularly wise on that day (instead of worn out as I'm guessing - hence the bribe), she might taught me a lesson I've had to learn the hard way in business. She would have offered to split the candy bars and given me some of each. I would have jumped on it immediately! The best of both worlds! Ah, but alas, it's a cruel world. She would have given me a bit of each, but the bits would not been a half of each so the two parts would have been less than the whole I could have had if I had made a tough choice.

Here's the point. It's so tempting for us to sell to anyone who wants to buy what we offer. We perform market studies and, low and behold, there's a lot of opportunity in segments we don't yet serve. So we build it into our strategic plans to go after those segments...and the next one...and the next one. Before we know it, we're targeting ALL the segments. That's our focus...EVERYTHING. And guess what happens when try to be all things to all people? Our image is watered down, our message is hazy, and our differentiated advantage vanishes into thin air. We're left with good sales (not great) spread out over lots of places. Overall market share might not be bad, but it seems stuck in the mud. Then we wonder...what if we'd stayed concentrated on a few key segments? Would big share and margins in those segments add up today to more than "fair" share and margins in lots of segments? Could we have had a whole candy bar? Possibly. Maybe even probably.

So, the next time you consider how hard (and how much money to spend) to pursue an account, line of business, industry segment or even country....just stop and think about the candy bar choice. Going after something different while holding on to what you have is really hard...but maybe you could pull it off. Or, maybe you'll decide to go deeper into the business you know best. What do you perceive? It's clear that choices aren't easy. But making the right ones can be very sweet.

Matthew Kelly: The Dream ManagerKelly tells the story of a company that becomes devoted to helping employees attain their dreams outside of the office. Then you are challenged to create a program like it for your company.